Zoo Trip

Today I went to zoo classes at our zoo. Today, my group were supposed to present a question about an animal, and solve it by using the supplies chosen by us. We came up with the question, Do Tigers like to be on rocks, or on the ground? We used a laser thermometer to see what temperatures the ground and the rocks were. Believe it or not, it was warmer on the rocks (where the majority of the tigers were) than on the ground by about six degrees. 

We also did an ethogram to track what the tigers were doing over a period of time. It turns out that all but one of the tigers were not on the rocks. I also found out that most zoologists will use ethograms to monitor an animals activities.
Overall I found that the tigers tend to stay wherever it is warm. 

BELOW IS AN EXAMPLE OF AN ETHOGRAM

Sink Hole

For my schoolwork I do a subject called current events. It is when I search official news sites for an interesting story to write a summary about. Two days ago I was reading about a sink hole incident on CNN. The people lived in Florida and lived in a place known for its sink holes. Bush, 36, fell into a 20 foot wide and 50 foot deep hole in his bedroom, pretty scary right? He is currently presumed dead

His brother jumped into the hole to look for him, but luckily he made it out OK. Although emotionally he was pretty torn up

The story on CNN is here 

Smash book

Recently, my mom has found these journals called smash books. It is basically a journal that you smash stuff you want to remember in. It is kind of nice that I can do whatever I want to do with the page instead of having a strict code to follow.

It is basically an everything book. You can use whatever you want where every you want without the hassle of having to make it symmetrical . I found some really cool ideas on this site. It is really cool what you can do with a smash book. If you look on Google and type in "smash book ideas" you will find TONS of ideas.

Grass

For a school project my mom went to a seed store to buy some grass and clover seed to grow in our house in little yogurt containers. The guy from the store ended up just giving us two tiny bags full of grass seed for free and one small bag of clover seed.

It took about four days for the topsoil that we bought to unfreeze. Once it unfroze mom planted the seeds. I do not have a green thumb, I even have killed a cactus because I did not water it enough. Who kills a cactus?! I still have the HUGE pot I used to grow it in, so I used that instead of the little yogurt cups.
                                    

What I did is that I put all three seeds in one pot each on a side and see which one thrived the most. So far we don't have any grass yet.

Trip to the Art museum

Today, Tiger and I went on a tour of an art museum. It was really cool to see works from ancient Egypt, to Manet, to Vincent van Gogh. The tour reminded me of an incident that took place not to long ago......

A couple of months ago Tiger, Polar bear, Giraffe, and myself went on a tour similar to the one Tiger and me went to today. During the guide's insentient talking, it was inevitable that they got board. Giraffe finally had enough, and ran to one of the paintings the docent was talking about and poked it. The museum people were NOT happy with us but what would you expect? Since then I have not forgotten how Giraffe touched a one hundred year old painting, I wonder how it felt?

Besides the art museum I made a poem recently. It is 100% original (I hate copycats). 

                                                                  Free like a Sparrow

                                                                               By Ryan Langston, age 12

Seeing a singing sparrow soar though the skies-

Always, brings joyous tears to my eyes,

To gaze to the heavens, as I might try-

To see a spectacle, so carefree, as it flies-

And for it not to worry about evil, and many a lie.

But, here on the land, I will stand-

With nothing to demand.

And yet as my hands are bound,

The world will still go 'round.

I wish nothing more for my story-

Nothing besides to fly free without worry,

Like a sparrow in the sky.

100!

Thank you all so much all so much for visiting this blog! I am very happy that  I have achieved my goal of 100+ page views and hope that there are many more to come. 

Today, we are going to a water park. Everyone is running though the house screaming and asking when we leave. My mom wants the house "Spotless" clean before we leave, I really don't get that.Our preparations include;

• Bathing suits and goggles
• Water bottles
• Pj's
• Day clothes 
• Gluten free bread
• Honey nut Cheerios

We eat a lot of Udi's gluten free products they are so good tasting! Sadly they are so expensive!

I am pretty sure that Honey nut Cheerios have gluten in them but when I tried to tell her she wouldn't have it. We leave today at 1-2 in the afternoon.

I just hope they have a hot tub! :)

Sugar changed the world

Just recently my mom has made me read a book called "Sugar changed the World" It was a good book, it went in great detail about sugar plantations. There was a section of the book that I thought was unnecessary though. My mom made me write a paper on the book. It took me forever to fix all the things that needed to be changed, but in the end  I think it turned out to be a pretty good paper.

What I thought was amusing was that I was learning the same exact thing in history. So some of the information (although not a lot) came from my history lessons. 


                                        SUGAR
                                      by Ryan Langston
Sugar, it is in most of what we eat. It is the driving force that put millions of Africans in chains and sent off to distant lands. Yet it was sugar that let us hear what the slaves had to say about freedom and eventually lead us to believe that ALL men are equal.

Sugar cane (where sugar originates) was said to be first discovered by a Greek captain named Nearchus whom stumbled upon “Sweet reeds” along India's coast around 510 BC while serving Alexander the Great. Long before the Greeks set foot in India, the native people of India first used sugar cane to use in special ceremonies, rituals and even burials.

Years later after the Greeks, sugarcane was used in India to treat injuries. They discovered that sugar was an energy booster.  They made patients eat sugar as well as rub it on wounds. The Sanskrit, (some of whom lived in India) called sugarcane “Khanda” once the word got to England Khanda was turned into “candy”.  The first University in the world used sugar as a large part of medical training.

After that, huge discoveries were being made with sugar. After several years Muslims found a way to mill and refine sugarcane into the powder we now know today as sugar. Yet this was no ordinary sugar, it was brown! While this was happening Egypt became a sugar laboratory, experimenting new ways to use and refine it. After several decades of experimenting the Egyptians found a way to turn the unappetizing brown sugar to nearly pure white. They did this by draining the molasses from out of the sugar several times, making it near pure white.

In Europe, dukes, counts, kings or just wealthy merchants set up fairs. These fairs were focal points for foreign trading in Europe. When Muslim merchants came in with expensive and exotic sugar, trade exploded. Everyone wanted sugar. This new exotic spice was not cheap. In fact, in 1226 even kings had a hard time purchasing just three pounds of sugar. At the time just three pounds of sugar cost an estimated whopping 450 modern dollars. The reason sugar was so expensive was due to the fact  that it was shipped from far away and had gone through several places to refine and whiten it. Anyone who tasted sugar at the time quite literally tasting India, Egypt and everywhere in-between.

After awhile Spain and Portugal got sick of the unfair pricing of the Muslim merchants in the fairs and turned their attention westward. They sent explorers such as Christopher Columbus and Ferdinand Magellan to find a short sea route  to the Indies. They did not find short a route to the Indies, but what they did find is a whole different land full of mysterious creatures and hostile natives. Or more importantly acres upon acres of fertile soil to plant sugar cane.

At first, they used the natives as slaves but after awhile they all died off from disease and beatings. That left only the plantation owners, who did not want to toil in the sugar fields. So they started to trade slaves from Africa. An estimated million and a half slaves died just from the boat ride, not to mention the actual plantations.

After many years the Europeans created a system called the transatlantic slave trade. It starts out as manufactured goods from Europe which then gets traded for slaves in Benin or other African kingdoms. Then the slaves go to places like Brazil, Jamaica or the dreaded Caribbean sugar islands. From there the sugar goes back to Europe in bulk and thus the triangle continues.

Owning a sugar plantation in the 1500s was a very profitable business. So profitable that sugar was in fact called “white gold”. It was the desired job to become a plantation owner. Back then people  did not care about the millions upon millions of slaves who lived the harshest life imaginable and died due to intense beatings, hunger, disease, and overwork.

In 1565, sugar was so common and so inexpensive that even common people could afford this “white gold” compared to 1226 where kings had trouble purchasing just a few pounds. Once the public in Europe had heard of such mistreatment they (although not immediately) began to protest slavery and finally in 1807 a bill was passed in England that all men were equal. In the 1850s, slavery came to an end, but only to rise to a new form of labor, Indenture.
 
In the 1850s people wanted inexpensive labor for their sugar plantations. Indenture was not really freedom but wasn't really slavery. Indentured servitude is when someone convinces you to sign a legally binding contract saying you will work for a good wage and fair hours for a period of one to four years. Most of contract you signed was a lie, what really happened was that they worked like slaves for a really cheap wage, and those who spoke out were immediately eliminated or thrown in jail for violating the contract.  

During this time sugar was going out of business, and merchants were no longer making a profit. So at this point there wasn't much reason to continue the sugar plantations. New things were taking sugars place such as beet sugar which is cheaper to make and does not need so many slaves. This brought an end to the age of sugar.

Sugar was the driving force that caused many good and bad things that have played out over the centuries. It permanently altered our diet, introducing candy and other sweets. It caused some of the biggest movements of people in history. It made us realize the horrors of slavery and it revolutionized farming into plantations. Sugar has made a lasting impression in the world, I guess you could say that sugar changed the world.